"I wasn’t really quick enough" rues Erik Jones after finishing P4 at Atlanta Motor Speedway

Erik Jones scored his sixth top-ten finish of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway during last Sunday's Quaker State 400. The Petty GMS driver is among the drivers who haven’t secured a win so far this season. He was looking forward to booking a spot in the playoffs with this race.

Despite finishing in the top-five positions, Jones has stated that he wasn’t fast enough. According to him, his #43 FOCUSfactor Camaro ZL1 was fast all day but needed more speed. He also cited that he had issues with the handling, which slowed them down a bit.

Speaking in a media interview, the Petty GMS Motorsports driver said:

“I thought our day was good. Our No. 43 FOCUSfactor Chevy was quick. We needed a tick more speed. I think we had to do some things for handling that slowed us down a little bit. We were up there, but I couldn’t really break out and do much. When I got in the lead there, I wasn’t really quick enough to hold it myself.”

The fourth finish was Jones’ second-best performance this season after finishing P3 in California earlier this year. It was also the third race he has led a few laps in since the season began, taking his lap lead tally to 53 laps.

Though he stated he didn’t have enough speed to wrap up the day, Jones stood out as the fastest driver. He began the race in P25, a very tight starting position, working pretty hard in stages one and two. In Stage 2, he got into the wall, scratching his No.43 Chevy but was still in the right shape to win the race.

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Erik Jones' performance in the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season

After great moves in stages one and two, Jones began dominating the race in the third stage, in which he managed to take the lead for several laps. He took the lead with 91 laps remaining until the final stage, running door-to-door with Austin Cindric.

After a long day at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, Erik Jones' efforts placed him in fourth place behind Daytona winner Austin Cindric. Before last Sunday's race, Jones had posted a disappointing finish at Road America after finishing P26.

With 21 races under our belts, Jones has garnered six top-ten finishes, including three top-five finishes. The 26-year-old has visited Victory Lane only twice since joining the Cup Series in 2017.

His last win was in 2019 when he won the 2019 Bojangles’ Southern 500 in Darlington. With fifteen races remaining to complete the season, Erik Jones still has the hope of securing his third career win.